Food gardening is back in fashion and Michael Pollan brings it to a new audience … readers of the New York Times. Read his well-written article especially the concluding five paragraphs about urban agriculture.

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW – Why Bother?
By MICHAEL POLLAN
Published: April 20, 2008
Photo credit: Alia Malley

“A great many things happen when you plant a vegetable garden, some of them directly related to climate change, others indirect but related nevertheless. Growing food, we forget, comprises the original solar technology: calories produced by means of photosynthesis. Years ago the cheap-energy mind discovered that more food could be produced with less effort by replacing sunlight with fossil-fuel fertilizers and pesticides, with a result that the typical calorie of food energy in your diet now requires about 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce. It’s estimated that the way we feed ourselves (or rather, allow ourselves to be fed) accounts for about a fifth of the greenhouse gas for which each of us is responsible.”

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“Far more than simply a ‘how to’ manual, this guidebook is a collection of a wide variety of experiences depicting school gardens across the state of Hawai`i. This book features teachers who plant gardens with their students to educate across multiple disciplines—math, geography, history, biology, and language arts.

“Stories of gardens that are more than just gardens abound, such as the school that parlayed lessons of growing things into lessons of entrepreneurship by turning a productive garden plot into a model farm business to assist in funding field trips.

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